


Fall For a Shooting Star

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Fix-It, Hugs, Illustrated, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 00:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17355626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: The rooftop access door creaks softly, opening and then closing, but Keith doesn't turn, not even as footsteps approach. There are only a handful of people who would come up here. He doesn't know which one of them the footsteps belong to, but he doesn't mind looking at stars with any of them and there's no need to take his eyes from the sky.Only when a hand comes to rest on his shoulder does he know who it is.





	Fall For a Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ribbitsplace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ribbitsplace/gifts).



> Merriest of merries, Ribbit! You're one of my favorite Sheith artists and I was so delighted to get you for the [Paladin Secret Santa 2k18 Exchange](https://paladinsecretsanta2k18.tumblr.com/). I just hope you enjoy this half as much as I enjoy your art! ♥
> 
> Now with art by Ribbit herself! ♥♥
> 
> Title from Train's "Drops of Jupiter."

As Keith gazes skywards, he waits for the stars to start falling. 

He's lived among stars for so long now—years longer than any of the other Paladins, thanks to the quantum abyss—that maybe they should have lost some of their wonder and shine for him. And maybe they have. 

But meteor showers are different. They've always been special, _magical_ to a kid who never believed in magic, a wordless marvel from the first time he watched the Quadrantids from the roof of their house with his dad, through all the ones he's witnessed since then here on Earth and on other planets, to this one he's waiting for on the Garrison rooftop.

As he waits for the falling stars, Keith gazes at the ones fixed in the sky. The constellations of the Milky Way were once so familiar, but they feel almost like strangers to him now and rather than connecting the stars along the invisible lines his dad used to draw for him with a pointed finger, Keith finds himself contemplating the distances between them. Some of the stars look so close to each other, but he knows how deceptive that is, how vast the distances between bodies that seem close in space actually are.

The rooftop access door creaks softly, opening and then closing, but Keith doesn't turn, not even as footsteps approach. There are only a handful of people who would come up here. He doesn't know which one of them the footsteps belong to, but he doesn't mind looking at stars with any of them and there's no need to take his eyes from the sky.

Only when a hand comes to rest on his shoulder does he know who it is. The touch is light and it slips away before he can decide whether or not to reach up and rest his own hand on that one.

It's for the best that Shiro didn't linger, Keith thinks, because he's pretty sure he _was_ about to reach up, and that's not part of how they've always touched one another. It feels like it's been so long since Shiro has touched his shoulder like that and Keith is sort of relieved he didn't ruin it, that he didn't ruin the touch itself and didn't ruin the future memory of it.

"I thought you might be up here," Shiro says. 

Keith turns to him and finds that Shiro is looking at the stars too, not at him. It loosens something inside him: Shiro's gaze has belonged to the stars ever since Keith met him and, from the stories Shiro used to tell him, did so long before that. Seeing that Shiro still looks at the stars like this brings a smile to his face that Keith didn't know he had in him.

His smile lingers as he watches Shiro stargazing. "You found me." He meant to say it lightly but it comes out soft instead.

Before he can try to fix the unintentional tone, Shiro looks down from the stars, his gaze coming to Keith. He takes a visible breath, his diaphragm expanding, his chest rising and falling. His lips part but no words pass them, only the tip of his tongue curling under to moisten the lower one before he returns his gaze to the night sky.

Keith looks at him a moment longer. Yeah, he wouldn't know what to say to himself either; he doesn't know what to say and looks up again too. There's so much space between the stars, so much emptiness between them... 

"I figured you'd be here," Shiro says, as if restarting the conversation, giving Keith a pass on that failed joke which would have been misguided even if it had landed. This time Keith keeps his mouth shut and lets Shiro keep speaking. But instead of saying something about the meteor shower, Shiro says, "One more look at these constellations..."

The way Shiro trails off makes Keith glance over at him, in time to watch Shiro sigh again. Even though he's sure Shiro can feel the gaze, Keith keeps looking at him. He read a mixture of emotions in that sigh and takes a moment to parse them. When he does, when he understands that Shiro is talking about wanting one more look for himself, Keith gets a feeling in his chest he hasn't had since Shiro first told him he'd officially been given the Kerberos mission—"They're sending you and the Atlas back into deep space?"

The grin on Shiro's face as he turns to Keith now is unmistakable, and Keith is smiling too even before Shiro says, "Yeah."

Keith could stand here looking at Shiro, just looking at him. For a moment it feels like Shiro could stand here just looking at Keith too. 

Then Shiro looks up at the stars again. "Diplomacy and peacekeeping mission," he says, answering a question Keith didn't ask but realizes now he should have thought to. He nods. 

Shiro is still looking up but he goes on like he's seen the nod and taken encouragement from it. "We'll be attempting to establish diplomatic relations with other planets and cultures, going into sectors where there's still unrest in the wake of the Galran Empire's dissolution and working to create stability—helping to reestablish peace, rebuilding infrastructures, that sort of thing. There's going to be a fair amount of overlap with humanitarian aid efforts by other organizations." Face still tipped to the stars, Shiro glances at him sidelong. "That's what the Blade of Marmora is going to be doing, isn't it?"

"Humanitarian relief, yeah." It's not completely settled but that's the direction Keith has been advocating for the Blade, and he thinks he finally has their votes of confidence thanks to endorsements from his mom and Kolivan.

"So one of my first tasks is to approach the leader of the Blades to see if we can work in concert. Side by side, even."

Shiro looks at him fully now and Keith nods—then flushes. "That's me," he says as if he's just realized it. 

"Yeah." Shiro grins. "It won't be like Voltron, but we'll still be working together." His smile wavers and he makes an effort not to let it fade away. "If that's something you—"

"Yes." Keith finds the distance between them gone, as if he's wormholed through it on words. His arms are around Shiro. He doesn't know how Shiro was going to finish that sentence, whether Shiro was uncertain if this is something Keith can do or something he wants or what. It doesn't matter because the answer is yes.

The answer will always be yes and there was a time Shiro knew that. Keith isn't sure when that changed, if it was when Shiro went into the astral plane or if it slipped away while he was there or if it was something he lost in the course of coming back—but the answer is always yes, and Keith wants Shiro to know that. His arms tighten around Shiro even more, as if Keith can bring him closer than close.

Then he thinks maybe it's too much, the wrong move, and he starts to pull back—but before he can, he feels Shiro's arms around him. 

The longer they stand there, the more it becomes something else: less about the Atlas and the Blade, and more about them.

There hasn't been a _them_ for a while. 

Keith doesn't want it to end. When they step back out of this hug, they're going to be the Federation and the Blade, and he just wants to be Shiro and Keith a little longer...

He takes a deep breath and steps back. 

And Shiro's arms tighten around him. "Ah, no, sorry," Shiro says and starts to relax his hold—but Keith is already holding on tight again. He's holding Shiro so close, he can feel the laughter rumble up from Shiro's chest, he can feel the soft puffs of it against his skin. The two of them are out of sync. They've been out of sync with one another, off by just a tick here, a vibration there. Not off by a lot and maybe no one else, not even the other Paladins have noticed it, but Keith has and Shiro must have too. 

Keith doesn't apologize or let go, and in the next moment Shiro is holding him close again, and Keith can feel the rhythm of Shiro's breathing; it's the rhythm of his own. He wonders if their hearts are beating to the same rhythm too.

"The Leonids," Shiro murmurs then and as the first stars fall, they move apart at last.

Since the meteor shower will go on for hours, they sit down. Keith stretches his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his hands. Shiro shifts, bending one of his knees and draping his arm over it. As the blue glow of his other arm disappears from Keith's peripheral vision, Keith realizes he has disengaged it to minimize the light pollution. 

There's more light pollution up here on the roof of the old Garrison educational facility than there would be in the desert, of course, but the moon is a thin waxing crescent and the cloudless night sky is a brilliant black, and the Leonids are radiant against it.

They light up the sky. The Leonids have a historical reputation for being one of the more spectacular showers, with as many as fifty thousand meteors crossing the sky every hour. Keith doesn't know if there are that many tonight, but there are more than he could count even if he wanted to. Bright pinpricks flare brighter as they arc down, playing off one another, painting the sky with their trailing tails of light. It really is like a shower, Keith thinks as he watches: a distant rainfall of light, a wondrous starfall...

Hours into watching, as the Leonids start to thin out, Shiro says, "Did you wish for anything this time?"

"You know I didn't," Keith says. He never does.

Shiro makes an inarticulate sound of agreement and they watch the slowing stars wordlessly.

Gazing skywards, Keith says, "What did you wish for?"

"Nothing," Shiro says.

As he turns to Shiro, Keith's brow gets caught between arching and furrowing. "But you always wish." As Shiro continues watching the stars, Keith studies him. "There's nothing you want right now?"

"There is," Shiro says. "But it's not something a starwish can give me." 

It's the way Keith explained it once, when Shiro asked why he doesn't wish. Because a starwish can't give you a person. When he was little, his dad always wished for his mom and the stars never brought her back to him, so.

Then Shiro looks down from the stars, looks at Keith, and their gazes connect. 

"Yeah," Keith says, caught in the gaze; throwing himself into it, falling in it weighlessly. "Maybe you don't need a starwish to have it."

"No?" 

"No," Keith says. And then, gazing at Shiro gazing at him, "Yes."

Their lips touch, and the universe opens up luminous around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Incredibly lovely art by Ribbitsplace [ [twitter](http://twitter.com/ribbitsplace) | [tumblr](http://ribbitsplace.tumblr.com/) | instagram ]   
>  [original post with full size art](http://ribbitsplace.tumblr.com/post/181882664045/fall-for-a-shooting-star-sheith)


End file.
